Enterprise networks are carrying a very fast growing volume of both business and non-business critical traffic. Often, business applications such as video collaboration, cloud applications, etc., use the same hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) and/or HTTP secure (HTTPS) techniques that are used by non-business critical web traffic. This complicates the task of optimizing network performance for specific applications, as many applications use the same protocols, thus making it difficult to distinguish and select traffic flows for optimization.
Some enterprise networks are now also leveraging the use of virtual service platforms (VSP). In general, VSPs are virtual entities within a computer network that provide particular services for the enterprise. For example, traffic within the network may be routed through a particular VSP for purposes of performing security functions, caching, analytics, etc. Typically, such traffic is sent via a virtual private network (VPN) tunnel with the VSP.